Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Facebook buys WhatsApp for $19 billion

Facebook has entered into an agreement to acquire WhatsApp, the popular messaging app, for $16 billion in cash and stock.Referring to WhatsApp's soaring growth, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on a conference call, "No one in the history of the world has done anything like that."The deal is by far Facebook's largest acquisition to date. WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app for smartphones.Like Instagram, WhatsApp will function as an autonomous unit within Facebook, with all the existing employees coming in as part of the deal.